Sacrimonious

Sometimes I get a bug (the parasitic kind that cause itching) to write a post based purely on a word I inexplicably have in my head.

In this case, it is sacrimonious. Which isn't in fact a word at all, in the Merriam-Webster sense. And the two words it's ostensibly derived from "acrimonious" and "sanctimonious" carry none of the meaning the bizarro word, "Sacrimonious" carries in my mind. Yes, I capitalized it that time. It has, now in my personalized dialect, attained the status of "proper adjective" which isn't a designation that exists in the common man's English.

So having discussed, in an odd manner, Sacrimonious' etymology, one might ask, "What does it mean?"

Great question. While I can't provide a definition per se (a phrase I always italicize) I can (a word I don't always italicize) use the word in a sentence. I have provided the following example for illustration,

Boy 1: Hey Peter! They're showing back-to-back-to-back monster pictures at the dollar theater! Wanna grab a snow-cone with the gang and check it out?

Peter: Davie, can't you see I'm busy editing an abstract for my on-spec submission to Science Daily which hopes to resolve the seemingly irreconcilable principles of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. I don't have time for the Sacrimoneous representation of science you proffer with enticements of snow cones and such like.

Davie (formally, Boy 1): You are rotten!

As you can see, Sacrimonious, while always capitalized, is not bound by traditional ideas of spelling- whether spoken or written. This unnamed dialect is challenging for some, but the more confidence you have about its usage, the more liberating it becomes. Also, please note the lack of the proper interrogative punctuation in Peter's rhetorical rejoinder. This is a further example of the unique dialect's capacity.

I hope you have appreciated this obtute exposition.

A Psalm.

Let's with clapped hands make,

The heavens ring, like tolling bells,

Peals of joy fill the valleys

Like rivulets the one who tells,

How the tresses of golden-haired sun

Bowed, its raiments collected,

Like the train of a pious nun.

And I saw deer in the meadow kneel.

The dogs will get more than scraps,

The table broke and the food,

Spilled everywhere on the ground,

Is easier to eat dirty and crude.

Always after my tail to gobble up

It, my conscience and my neighbor.

The patchwork, which I rudely cobble up;

Is poorly gauged for all this gravity.

But this wine beaded on the floor,

Tastes best, saved for last and worst.

Let her lap it up- the whore.

How happy she seems! and the sun too...

Let the peals crack off cliffs and the mouths,

of empty canyons. The bells sound louder.

They don't mind you who belittles.

The dogs enjoy their vittles.

Throwing open the shudders

And unsettling this musty air. This area has fallen into some neglect. Here, spiders have woven their webs, snagged their buggy morsels, and left their nets to the dust. Here, only cobwebs and stagnant air.

So I'm here to open the windows a' la Secret Garden and hoping to chase out the boring.

I am in Hawaii. Specifically I'm on Hawaii. What I mean is I'm on Hawaii, in Hawaii- I'm on the Big Island named Hawaii, from which the archipelago's name is derived.

Ok well, we're shipping out now. High adventure on the south of the island and later, the infinite cosmos from a mountain peak. Vistas and galaxies, ho!

Late night reading/listening to reviews on pitchfork.

I don't know if I feel edified, aerobicised, or just strung out. Anyhow, their minefields of bizarre and jangly analogies makes you tired. And probably inflects your brain.

"Much of the sample-based, ambient-leaning music under discussion these days falls beneath the nebulous umbrella of chillwave, glo-fi, or hypnagogic pop."

Haha... glo-fi. I do enjoy it.

An Aesthetic Defense of Dogma

Citing other considerations, dogma has primarily been maligned as boring. It's a trifle, bringing defense to these criticisms, but necessary, given our preoccupation with the look over the what. So we begin with a definition. Dogma: a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

The greatest criticism of dogma is this: creativity needs movement. If you have a fixed notion, then the discussion of it is no more interesting than observing the sky's blueness. If you have a static emotion, then the color of happiness soon grays; the pang of sadness becomes a numb dreariness; the beauty of tranquility is simply uninteresting, and so on. Like that disgusting water stopped up in the corner gutter of your house, it festers.

So, does this mean that opinions are merely fashion? Well, yes. To most people, anyway. But what is missed about dogma is the more subtle beauty of context. If nothing is new under the sun, then this is the only kind of beauty that truly matters, or ultimately exists. Everything else is just illusion. If this is true, as I think can be demonstrated, then it provides the framework for an objective subjectivity in art.

We've all been given rocks, not clay. Certain universals that persist whether we prefer it or not. The only thing we can do is change the context of the rock. With our words or artistic mediums, hide the rock, cast the light so it strikes a different way, or create a beautiful setting for the rock. However, the rock is still the rock. Some people theorize what the actual rock looks like. Some people contextualize the rock in an interesting way before deciding they want to create a new shape for the rock and create another context for it.

Dogma is simply believing that the rock's shape is knowable. Does this mean dogma is inherently better? Of course not. In many cases dogma can be completely wrong and limiting. Other times it's the opposite. It's like scientific theories. Relativity is encountering some bumps, but it's a useful example. Einstein had a theory that he believed described what he was seeing in mathematics. It wasn't something he had yet seen empirically, but it informed what he was looking for empirically. In time, evidence began to accumulate that supported his theory. He believed he understood some shape of the rock, and it predicted what later was observed.

This works because he worked from a set of established opinions: the universe was knowable, it could be explained through mathematical constants and relationships, and that it behaved in a way that could be testable and verified. With these, he was able to understand part of the rock. And with that part of the rock understandable, it could be made beautiful by considering different contexts: how big the universe is, how complex, how bizarre, and how foreign differences of scale can be. Those are contexts that were enabled by a dogma.

Ultimately, everyone has dogma. Everyone has established beliefs. Sometimes they should change. Other times, you must resist fashion and maintain belief. In all circumstances, one should realize that dogma is always belief. It is always faith to believe the rock is knowable. And the more coherently that belief can explain interpreted reality and account for an epistemology, the more beautiful its contexts can be.

My own dogma is that there can be nothing more beautiful than realizing the love and mercy of Christ's sacrifice at Golgotha. It's a beautifully ugly image that sounds like the Alpha for every other story that has existed throughout mankind. And I believe it will be every story's Omega too. It accounts for epistemology in fallen man and allows for a universe that can be knowable through science in the context of God's supernatural über-will, and demands a law of mercy to coexist equally with a law of justice.

If I am able to proclaim that beauty by highlighting it anew in endless contexts, then I am happy. And I can think of no better Aesthetic. Far from being dull, I think the right dogma is the only way art can be endlessly interesting and vibrant.

The Law of God

A thousand crazed men hanging

On the edge of madness

A thousand crazed men hanging

Toes tickling the glass,

Of that undisturbed watery mass,

We're singing our last song,

Rehearsing the steps for the last dance

The men from the East are coming

Snaking like the river for miles

There is the desert still! think

A thousand crazed men hanging

On the edge of madness

A thousand crazed men hanging,

Toes tickling the glass,

Of that hungry watery mass.

Creasing your brow,

There are ten million

White sails like shrouds, or puffing clouds,

Like white blankets.

Someone stabbed the earth in the East,

Oozing like the river in pulses of blood.

Spilling over and over and over and over and over and over

Down the river, keeping the sails afloat.

Filling the river for their million boats.

It's a new sunny day, but all I can see,

Is my body twitching in a casket of clay.

I live on the left side and die on the Right,

My lies have grown up like Bengal lights.

Thunder's cracking down all around me

And it feels like my heart

Pumping the blood out, out, out

All the unholy blood!

A thousand crazed men hanging

Onto the edge of madness,

A thousand crazed men hanging,

Toes tickling the glass,

Of that bloody congealed mass.

LORD! Oh God, Light of our earth, hope of our souls,

You came in the thunder but-but-

(gave us your whisper)

There's a change, this fear's got a hold of me now,

And the madness like a circle, complete, and feeding

Itself like a damned wreath.

It sounds like gnashing teeth.

God! Oh God-

Walk out into the night, you just have to see it,

You just have to see it you just have to see it you just have to see

What will kill you. The lightning is illuminating

The thousand crazed men swimming,

In their deadly sea, they fell,

Into this deep round cavern, flashing, thundering, and bloody

Like a womb and the labor is agony,

Inside this sphere of death.

Reach to the paternal right hand,

Clap your thighs and kiss the knees,

The great rolling and unblinking eye

Fixed upon you in the bright, white, flashing darkness.

Give up your guns. Give up your guns!

Why won't you give up your guns?

Can't you see that it's the edge of madness

To fire upon them, it can't work.

But they won't see our white flags!

Let us blaze out like these lightning shocks.

And go quivering into the dust, to float their sails,

With our bubbling blood?

You should be my light, and I could be your space

To live in and die in the night.

Good God, we wanted a fight and we got one.

I'm getting cold and fear this damp,

I was hit, I think I've been hit. I don't want to die.

It was a good plan, tell my mother hi.

We were among them,

The thousand crazed men,

Clinging to our madness,

The thousand crazed men,

Now choking on their last breath,

We hoped to carve life from death.

We were wrong, were very wrong,

Ducking in this Sinai valley with our small hands,

Like we'd seen the flash of the atom bomb.

Something like hot melted rock, waist deep

It makes our skeletons all bright,

Like December Christmas light.

Take us away from here! Take us away from our graves,

Take us awayawayaway.

We tried, now we've died, and I'm not even angry anymore.

It seems too just for that.

Thank God I'm a free man.

Percy Shelley

And nearer to the river's trembling edge	25
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white,
And starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;	30
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.